I’ve been totally blown away by Cambodia. The people here are incredibly strong and resilient and kind, and the sights are just fantastic. I’m gonna give an overview of the last week. On Friday, for “adventure day” we went to Phenom Penh –first to our favorite spot the Blue Pumpkin (coffee shop and cafe) for breakfast and whatnot. Then me and Grace went on a search for a place to get a massage (I got her permission to share our experience). I was hoping to find a spot where the therapist maybe understood some English because a massage can get weird when you’re trying to say something and nothing is understood.
Our experience went as follows: “Hi does the therapist inside understand English?” “Yes they understand English” And Grace says, “okay well we both want a one hour body massage.” She basically motions for us to follow her and then leads us into a very tiny room with three massage beds about 10 inches apart from each other. It is silent and dimly lit. We decide, “I guess we are supposed to take off our clothes –but its kind of weird because we weren’t told anything.” And just as we are both in only our underwear, holding the tiny towel-like thing over us–two women come in–the four of us are awkward giggling. One woman tells us to “go to sleep.” So we both lay on our stomachs, and the women CLIMB on top of us and basically pull down the only clothing on us so our butts are exposed to the ceiling. Then they start massaging the cheeks–not what we were expecting, but we are committed to just seeing how this goes–ESPECIALLY FOR ONLY $8. Then Grace’s lady realizes she is out of massage oil and she leaves for about 5 mins leaving Grace’s butt exposed and just waiting. At this point for me theres a lot of oil and rubbing and also some sort of punching (which is typical for a Khmer massage). When Grace’s lady comes back, she puts in a CD (thank youuu!!) and its instrumental disney lol my favorite. First “Be Our Guest” and then “Circle of Life”, and Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight?” then it goes into other instrumental American love songs. We learn soon on that the women know probably 10 or so English words. The two women are speaking in Khmer most of the time–which is sort of like background noise to us. When she finishes sitting on me and hitting my back, she says “turn over.” I turn over and she massages my arms and legs–a bit higher up on the leg than any massage I’ve had in America, and she did this weird thing where she pulls really hard on my fingers and like, pinches the ends of them as she pulls and it makes a loud snap against her finger. It was a little painful! Then she goes to my feet and pulls the towel to cover them, which reveals my whole chest! Then crosses one foot over the other and kinda crunches down on it and then switches the other foot to the top. When she comes back up to my right arm, I pull the towel back up and we are both awkward laughing. And then she gets on top of me, and puts one hand on each side of my pelvic area framing the lady parts and puts all her weight on her hands for about 12-15 seconds. Me and Grace both agree that at this point we are thinking, “okay where is this going?” cause that was not at all expected! Then she kinda takes my elbow and pushes it up as much as it will go–to which I tell Grace, “get ready for the stretch.” She instructs me to sit up and she gets behind me and lays the pillow on top of her and tells me to lean back. OKAY I’ve never been in such an intimate position with someone I wasn’t ya know–intimate with–and she massages my head probably more than usual since its got so little hair, and I’m just chillin like okay this is the most unexpected type of massage. Then she has me sit up and does more of the hitting thing that is common with this massage –there really wasn’t any deep muscle massaging lol. Then she reaches across my chest and turns me as to stretch my back. Then she instructs me to “get dressed” and hands me Grace’s clothes, and sort of uncovers the light. Grace still had some massage left because her girl had left for a few minutes. I said I wanted to wait for Grace to finish and asked her to cover the light back but I basically proceeded to get dressed anyway. It was a VERY interesting experience!! Me and Grace had lots of laughs and a great awkward story to share. I left my bottle in there and had to come back for it… they opened the door with other people in there to get it for me… now I get to be a little part of someone else’s awkward story since I was standing in the doorway lol. It was a pretty decent massage for $8—just quite weird for Americans like us.
Then I went to the tattoo shop where we’d been given a flyer the week before by a Russian man who does the tattoos. I was there for a good while planning a tattoo or two. Then I went with Jaivie and Grace to get our nails done. It was $7 for a “mani/pedi” but really it was just a color change since that’s literally all that was done. I’m pretty sure these were not licensed technicians–but they were very nice. LOL the polish is already off all my nails. All three of us were laughing at how bad a job it was, but were glad to support some local ladies.
Then I went and got my tattoo. Decided to save the other one for another day because I didn’t really trust the tattoo artist. Even after getting the one, he really didn’t “color in the lines” very well, so I certainly don’t suggest him. That blade of grass wasn’t supposed to be so close to the heart–but whateva. It’s of the stump from The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.
This week we visited two villages. The first we went to see on Saturday, I can’t turn away an opportunity to play volleyball so I played with the village guys and a girl for a bit. It was the hardest volleyball ever and bruised my arms up pretty bad, but it was worth it! Then I was kicked out because they were gonna play seriously–those men hold nothing back and play violently–no women allowed. I went over and hung out with the kids and we got to hear some of their stories–of a close friend dying a couple days before, a mother leaving the home and not seeing her for over 7 years, of different conflicts in life. We listened to them and prayed for them, and sang with them. Then we rode the tuk tuk back over an hour to get home.
Sunday, we had church in the morning, then spent the afternoon and evening at the village. We somehow got invited to join in a celebration. Apparently even when people live in handmade shacks and lack things I take for granted, they still like to turn up. We were encouraged to dance for a bit (while the villagers watched, laughed, and took videos). I’m the only one in our group who shamelessly dances uninhibited lol so it was a blast. Then we got to enjoy the first two parts of a four course meal–even had a special guy designated to put ice in our glass–wow! People were coming out in the fanciest makeup and clothes, and they hired some serious catering and dj people. They were celebrating a one year old’s birthday which is the hardest part for me to understand…but in Khmer a one year old’s birthday is the most important. It is believed that if they lived to be a year old, they will survive–so this is the biggest of birthday celebrations.
On Monday, Eunice took us to find the market and get some cool clothes for cheap. We also went to the mall for an hour. It had a skating rink inside and five floors but I didnt have time to really check it out. I also think the mall pretty much only had clothes for people smaller than me lol and they weren’t good priced. There weren’t many people at the mall and it was clearly a place for people with money and Americans who moved there—it was bougie. After, we went to a market and I got a skirt and dress (my size) from local ladies. On the way home, we stopped at our favorite bubble tea place mmm, and went for dinner. Our hosts have been the kindest.
As you can see I like riding in the tuk tuk. 🙂
On Tuesday, we went to a village that is three hours away from where we live. There were 22 people in a 15 passenger van/minibus. We arrived and had dinner made by the locals there. Below is our home for the two days. We slept upstairs in mosquito nets and some of us in our tent. Down below is where we ate all our meals. That little building in the background, with the blue door was our bathroom. There was a porcelain hole in the floor we could squat over. The first time I used this one I literally sprayed all over my face. Next to the porcelain hole is a large …vat thing/tall area filled with water and you use the pot to fill it up with water and flush away whatever is in the hole (cant put toilet paper in it). If you need to shower, you just dump that water over you. It’s not the cleanest but I did it, and it felt great because I needed it.
The next day in the morning we ate breakfast and then went to a school. It was sort of a monastery in the front and a school in the back with over 220 students, all living in the village. The principal and a couple teachers told us of all the struggles and worries such as needing new buildings because these could fall in on the children. I observed mold and crumbling bricks in rooms for 30-50 students with only one teacher. The families must provide the children with their supplies which they cannot afford. The government pays the teachers here which is a blessing. They make $250 per month, and there are 13 teachers. The teachers said the government uses the money given in corrupt ways since they receive support from other countries but the schools are still struggling. Also the area floods a LOT, and even then the students and teachers still show up to school. They need cement for the school. Also another worry is that children quit school so early in life because their parents cannot afford to send them to school and the children start working to help the family. We prayed for all these needs. The school is only four hours a day (7-11am) and it was ending around that time we were leaving.
The rice fields are beautiful.
When we got back from the school, we ate lunch and then did a special time of cutting people’s nails, and cleaning them, and washing their feet afterwards. I am very proud of the work I did. Some of the older women who had some nail issues came to me, and left looking completely better. These women were amazingly thankful, we showed them they are worth this. That they are hardworking, that’s what these nails show. These women and children are important, and we were thankful to be with them.
I gave a message which I felt led to give about forgiveness. I shared the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18), and talked about the situations in my life that were the hardest to forgive, and talked about forgiveness in great depth, about how God has helped me to forgive. I’m proud of my “sermon” and I know it was a meaningful time! Afterwards the people had a lot to say, and we hung out with them for a bit. I’ve got more about that in my next blog which should be up in a day or two.
That was last night, and this morning around 5:30 we were woken up by a neighbor’s blasting music. I think that’s a normal time for these rice farmers to wake up. It was crazy bass, you could hear the music from far away. Then we left this morning and I just wanted to love on this cow lol. It was a sweet cow.
And on the way home, I ate some delicious crickets. 😀
This is a picture of me teaching some English words last week. I made flash cards that were on my tablet/tiny laptop. We spent most of last week there.
I love puppies. Also those kids are cute. 🙂
